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THE  GRADUATE    COLLEGE 
OF  PRINCETON 


WITH     SOME     REFLECTIONS    ON 
THE  HUMANIZING  OF  LEARNING 


BY 


ANDREW  F.  WEST 

Dean  of  the  Graduate  School,  Princeton  University 


Reprinted  With  Additions  and  Revisions  from  The  Century  Magazine 
Illustrations  by  John  P.  Cuyler 


PRINCETON  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
PRINCETON 

1913 


Copyright,  1913,  by 
PRINCETON  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


Published  on  the  day  of  the 

Dedication  of  the  Graduate  College 

October  22,  1913 


THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE  OF  PRINCETON 

WITH  SOME  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  HUMANIZING 
OF  LEARNING 

"To  the  Minnow  every  cranny  and  pebble,  every  quality, 
and  accident,  of  its  little  native  Creek  may  have  become 
familiar:  but  does  the  Minnow  understand  the  Ocean 
Tides?"  THOMAS  CARLYLE. 

The  Graduate  College  of  Princeton,  so  long  deferred,  so 
lately  discussed  in  public  and  now  at  last  put  into  operation,  is 
in  spirit  and  substance  an  institution  for  humanizing  knowl- 
edge in  the  field  of  the  higher  liberal  studies. 

The  old  story  in  Montaigne  has  point  to-day.  One  fine 
morning,  while  riding  pleasantly  across  the  plain,  he  met  a 
company  of  gentlemen  and  bowed,  saying,  "Messieurs,  good 
morning,"  and  the  leader  of  the  company  curtly  answered, 
"We  are  not  Messieurs.  My  friend  here  is  a  grammarian,  and 
I  am  a  logician."  It  was  no  place  for  Montaigne — merely  one 
of  the  Messieurs.  So  he  rode  away  in  search  of  more  humane 
companionship. 

It  is  not  a  very  long  look  from  the  sixteenth  to  the  eight- 
eenth century  and  the  pages  of  Oliver  Goldsmith.  The  lam- 
bent wit  of  his  essay  on  "The  Present  State  of  Polite 
Learning,"  fit  sequel  to  the  tale  of  Montaigne,  plays  like  a 
flame,  illuminating  and  scorching  the  particularist  scholars  of 
his  time,  "the  men  who  contributed  to  obstruct  the  progress 
of  wisdom  by  addicting  their  readers  to  one  particular  sect, 
or  some  favorite  science.  They  generally  carried  on  a  petty 
traffic  in  some  little  creek ;  within  that  they  busily  plied  about, 
and  drove  an  insignificant  trade;  but  never  ventured  out  into 
the  great  ocean  of  knowledge." 

3 


271522 


4        ,          THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE  OF  PRINCETON 

Another  forward  look.  We  open  at  a  venture  the  little 
book  "Education  et  Instruction,"  written  near  the  close  of 
the  nineteenth  century  by  Brunetiere — incisive,  crystal-clear 
as  only  good  French  can  be,  and  lively  in  its  attack  on  the  nar- 
rowness of  our  "idees  particulieres"  when  severed  from  the 
"idees  generates."  Not  only  the  knowledge  needed  for  a 
specialty,  he  contends,  but  the  knowledge  and  moral  qualities 
which  underlie  and  connect  all  specialties  are  what  make  the 
scholar  who  is  a  man,  and  thereby  the  man  who  is  to  be  the 
best  scholar.  "As  for  the  particular  ideas,  our  own — here  is 
the  most  individual  and  in  consequence  the  most  eccentric 
thing  in  us.  But  the  general  ideas — here  is  the  truly  human 
in  us,  and  consequently  that  in  us  which  is  the  most  truly 
social." 

The  long  history  of  scholarship  is  punctuated  with  sharp 
comment  like  that  cited  above.  It  is  not  the  comment  of  foes 
of  knowledge,  but  of  friends.  And  our  present  American 
scholarship  could  add  many  new  instances  as  themes  for  the 
critic's  pen — examples  of  men  who  are  shut  up  in  their  "idees 
particulieres"  and  shut  off  from  the  general  humanity  of 
knowledge.  I  recall,  among  other  cases,  a  Doctor  of  Phi- 
losophy in  philology  who  had  never  heard  of  Tennyson's  "In 
Memoriam,"  an  archaeologist  almost  totally  ignorant  of  the 
simplest  facts  of  science,  and  a  chemist  who  inquired  sincerely 
for  the  meaning  of  "Empedocles,"  apparently  not  sure  whether 
it  was  a  plural  or  a  mineral.  The  gossip  of  university  circles 
would  fill  pages  with  such  "modern  instances,"  and  they  may 
be  collected,  like  curios,  at  any  large  educational  gathering.  It 
is  the  break-up  of  knowledge  into  pieces,  the  resulting  dis- 
severing of  sympathy  and  de-humanizing  of  scholarship,  the 
lowering  of  tone  which  comes  from  losing  one's  view  of 
knowledge  in  its  unified  grandeur,  and  the  literal  "provincial- 
izing" of  learning,  that  needs  attention  now — and  not  least  in 
our  graduate  schools.  At  any  rate,  the  belief  that  something 
serious  is  the  matter  is  prevalent  among  those  who  may  be 


CLEVELAND    TOWER    AND    ENTRANCE    GATE 
FROM    NORTHWEST 


THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE  OF  PRINCETON  7 

presumed  to  know  of  what  they  speak.  "It  may  be  doubted," 
writes  President  Lowell  in  his  first  annual  report,  "whether 
the  graduate  schools  in  American  universities  are  conducted 
upon  the  wisest  principles."  And  to  this  utterance  there  are 
many  echoes. 

What  place  and  use  has  the  graduate  school  in  a  university  ? 
What  is  it  for?  The  questions  cannot  be  answered  in  a 
sentence  or  a  page.  The  mediaeval  world,  unjustly  over- 
praised and  dispraised  in  turn,  gave  us,  among  other  things, 
the  universities, — a  priceless  inheritance.  Paris,  the  mother- 
school,  developed  and  delivered  to  the  future  a  full  model, 
imperfect  in  operation  but  sound  in  theory,  both  on  the  side 
of  the  professoriate  and  the  students.  It  was  a  four-facultied 
university  of  professors  combined  with  residential  colleges  of 
students.  The  French  Revolution  abolished  old  Paris  and 
changed  its  old-time  university.  To-day  the  four-facultied 
university  survives  as  a  system  in  Germany  and  residential 
colleges  of  students  remain  chiefly  in  England.  The  truth  at 
the  heart  of  this  history  is  that  a  university  is  a  community, 
and  a  community  made  up  of  teachers  and  learners,  an  actual 
respublica  litter  aria  (to  quote  an  old  name  for  the  university 
at  Cambridge),  and  that  in  this  established  and  continuing 
society  lies  the  safety  of  learning  as  a  self -perpetuating  force 
in  its  own  sphere  and  the  promise  of  learning  as  a  usable  force 
in  the  world.  In  this  home  dwells  a  comradeship  of  knowl- 
edge. Here,  better  than  elsewhere,  the  young  scholar  may  at- 
tain to  enlarged  vision  and  power.  For  his  high  vocation,  as 
the  philosopher  Fichte  said  in  a  famous  address  to  the  stu- 
dents of  Jena,  is  nothing  less  than  acquirement  of  "the  most 
widely  extended  survey  of  the  actual  advancement  of  the 
human  race  in  general,  and  the  steadfast  promotion  of  that 
advancement."  The  true  scholar  is  thus  to  be  more  than  a 
learner,  more  than  a  teacher,  more  than  a  discoverer;  he  is  to 
be  a  guide  to  his  fellow-men. 

In  the  four-facultied  university  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  Law, 


8  THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE  OF  PRINCETON 

Medicine  and  Divinity,  the  central  and  regulative  body  of 
studies  consists  of  the  so-called  liberal  arts  and  sciences  or- 
ganized in  the  Faculty  of  that  name.  This  body  of  studies 
alone  is  the  nearest  approximation  we  have  to  a  system  of 
pure  knowledge  of  universal  value.  It  represents  to  us,  as 
no  other  studies  can,  the  sum  of  things  best  worth  knowing  by 
men  who  seek  knowledge  for  its  own  sake  and  in  order  to 
guide  their  lives  in  accordance  with  the  highest  ends.  In 
America  the  preliminary  stage  of  this  knowledge  is  repre- 
sented, in  intention  at  least,  by  the  undergraduate  college 
course — the  historic  and  proper  root  of  every  true  American 
university.  The  second  or  higher  part  of  liberal  knowledge, 
the  flowering  of  the  collegiate  root,  belongs  to  the  graduate 
school.  Here,  if  anywhere,  the  standards  of  pure  knowledge 
are  to  be  maintained  for  their  own  sake  and  for  the  sake  of 
the  great  good  they  will  do  to  all  other  kinds  of  knowledge, 
whether  professional,  technical,  commercial,  political  or  in- 
dustrial, and  thus  most  usefully  serve  the  need  of  the  world. 
To  determine,  inspect,  certify  and  maintain  these  standards — 
the  weights  and  measure  of  knowledge — is  the  highest  intel- 
lectual duty  of  a  university,  less  only  than  the  supreme  duty 
of  subordinating  all  to  the  moral  end.  If  the  general  principles 
thus  simply  outlined  are  sound,  it  becomes  a  question  of  mo- 
ment to  ascertain  whether  the  condition  of  graduate  studies 
and  the  life  of  graduate  students  is  in  accord  with  these 
convictions. 

Like  civil  liberty,  the  higher  liberal  knowledge  is  always  in 
peril  and  always  worth  fighting  for.  Just  now  it  is  facing  the 
perils  of  deterioration  and  dismemberment.  Among  the  forces 
that  threaten  it,  the  commercial  spirit  is  probably  the  strong- 
est. It  means  the  pursuit  of  only  such  knowledge  as  "pays," 
the  absorption  in  material  ends,  the  rating  of  a  living  as 
higher  than  a  life.  This  spirit,  not  satisfied  with  engrossing 
the  business  life  of  the  country  and  at  times  menacing  its  po- 
litical integrity,  seeks  to  affect  every  part  of  our  education. 


THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE  OF  PRINCETON  9 

Its  attack  is  made  on  the  foundations.  Wherever  it  enters  side 
by  side  with  purely  liberal  studies  in  the  college  course,  it  starts 
to  drive  them  out  or  else  forces  them  to  be  taught  in  a  utili- 
tarian way,  practically  giving  them  the  alternative  of  de- 
terioration to  escape  extinction.  The  truth  that  all  high-minded 
knowledge  is  in  the  best  sense  useful,  is  torn  and  twisted  into 
the  half-truth  of  "service,"  the  doctrine  that  only  the  knowl- 
edge of  obvious  use  is  worth  having.  Under  this  notion  his- 
torical, social  and  political  studies  come  to  be  pursued  as  a 
kind  of  "contemporary  topics"  of  "live  interest,"  the  study  of 
literature,  even  of  our  own,  is  narrowed  to  the  most  recent 
periods — thus  shutting  off  depth  of  background,  philosophy 
descends  into  the  nursery  of  "child  psychology,"  and  the  great 
fundamental  sciences  are  neglected  except  in  their  most  prac- 
tical applications.  Other  knowledge  is  of  "no  use."  Where- 
ever  this  spirit  enters  professional  schools  it  tends  to  modify 
injuriously  the  sciences  which  underlie  the  professions,  so  that, 
for  example,  pure  mathematics  is  thought  in  some  quarters  to 
be  unsuitable  for  the  engineer  and  pure  biology  to  be  unsuit- 
able as  a  foundation  for  medicine.  "Modified"  mathematics 
or  "modified"  biology  is  the  resulting  hybrid.  And  hybrids 
are  sterile.  No  great  wave  of  utilitarian  influence  has  ever 
swept  unchecked  into  universities  without  disaster  to  liberal 
studies.  There  is  plenty  of  money  to  be  had  for  commercial,, 
industrial  and  technical  education,  and  it  is  money  very  well 
spent,  so  long  as  these  valuable  forms  of  training  are  well 
organized  for  their  own  ends  and  are  not  put  into  a  relation 
destructive  to  liberal  education.  There  is  little  danger  that 
utilitarian  studies  will  lack  friends  and  money.  The  danger 
is  to  the  other  studies. 

Another  threatening  force  is  unenlightened  specialization. 
It  breaks  the  structure  of  higher  knowledge  into  fragments. 
That  the  scholar  should  be  in  some  important  sense  a  specialist 
is  true.  That  he  should  be  only  a  specialist  is  a  calamity  to 
himself  and  others.  True  specialization  has  its  indispensable 


10  THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE  OF  PRINCETON 

value  in  the  exact  determination  of  particulars  and  in  ac- 
curately relating  particulars  to  the  general.  But  the  man  who 
is  only  a  specialist  is  an  intellectual  fraction.  He  is  no  longer 
whole-minded,  and  whole-minded  men  are  what  our  scholar- 
ship most  needs.  A  preliminary  sound  training  in  liberal 
studies  is  the  best  guarantee  we  have  that  the  intending 
scholar  of  good  native  capacities  is  likely  to  be  whole-minded, 
that  he  will  be  a  citizen  not  only  of  the  place  where  his 
special  work  lies,  but  of  the  commonwealth  of  knowledge. 
What  has  been  happening  these  twenty  years  or  more?  Er- 
ratic men  of  mediocre  or  inferior  general  powers  have  been 
flocking  into  their  specialties.  What  liberal  training  they  may 
have  had  is  weakened  by  disuse.  They  have  intensive  knowl- 
edge of  one  thing,  which  is  very  well  indeed,  with  extensive 
ignorance  of  most  other  things,  which  is  not  well  at  all.  Their 
narrow  intensity  of  vision  along  some  little  lane  of  knowledge 
seems  to  blind  them  to  all  the  scenery  outside.  They  are 
thus  isolated  from  the  general  world  of  knowledge,  and  often 
from  their  fellows  in  the  same  department.  It  is  not  uncom- 
mon to  find  philologists  who  know  little  and  care  less  about 
the  parts  of  philology  outside  the  enclosure  of  their  specialty — 
to  say  nothing  of  their  almost  total  neglect  of  knowledge  out- 
side of  philology.  The  same  is  true  of  specialists  in  mathe- 
matics, biology,  history,  psychology  and  almost  every  branch 
of  the  higher  learning.  Such  isolation  cuts  men  off  from 
community  of  sympathy.  It  reduces  and  even  annuls  their 
power  to  act  together  for  the  common  good.  It  breaks  up  the 
army  of  scholarship  into  a  mob  of  blindly  colliding  subdivis- 
ions. It  makes  it  difficult  to  rally  and  marshal  the  army  for 
the  next  advance. 

From  this  evil  flows  another,  namely,  the  loss  of  simplicity 
and  universality  in  the  scholar's  powers  of  expression.  Our 
literature  of  learning  is  to-day  overloaded  with  tractates  and 
books  of  all  sorts  written  in  a  tone  of  formidable  and  solemn 
pedantry.  The  writer  is  caged  and  mastered  by  his  restricted 


INTERIOR  OF  PROCTER  HALL 


THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE  OF  PRINCETON  13 

theme.  His  language,  or  rather  his  dialect,  becomes  technical, 
arid  and  lifeless.  His  book  has  and  can  have  few  readers, 
even  among  scholars  whose  work  is  in  or  near  his  own  depart- 
ment. This  makes  it  hard  to  maintain  a  reciprocal  reading 
interest  which  shall  connect  the  parts  of  a  department  and, 
what  is  more  important,  connect  the  various  departments  with 
one  another. 

Still  another  untoward  result  follows.  The  fractionally- 
minded  scholar  is  not  naturally  capable,  or  at  least  is  not 
easily  capable  of  whole-minded  judgments,  which  are  the  only 
ones  fundamentally  sound.  If,  as  Huxley  said,  scientific  in- 
sight is  nothing  more  than  "highly  trained  common  sense" 
applied  to  scientific  questions,  then  highly  trained  common 
sense — just  another  name  for  sound  judgment,  is  the  one  thing 
needful  to  all  sensible  scholarship.  Good  sense  naturally  goes 
with  large  vision.  The  man  who  has  taken  a  sweeping  view 
around  the  horizon  is  the  one  best  able  to  discern  the  place  and 
size  of  one  or  another  segment  of  the  scene,  and  the  scholar 
already  trained  in  studies  of  universal  value  is  the  one  who 
can  be  depended  on  most  surely  to  possess  the  wide-ranging 
and  well-balanced  view. 

There  are  three  radical  and  unescapable  problems  which 
face  every  human  being  and  are  of  necessary  concern  to  every 
man  who  would  be  a  complete  scholar.  One  is  the  outer  and 
momentous  problem  of  nature — the  world  of  things  outside. 
To  this  problem  the  answer  is  vouchsafed  him,  so  far  as 
vouchsafed  at  all,  in  the  teachings  of  Science.  The  second  is 
the  nearer  problem  of  Mankind — the  world  of  persons  outside 
him,  among  whom  he  must  move  and  live,  and  for  whom  his 
life  ought  to  be  spent.  The  answers  to  this  problem  are  found 
in  what,  in  the  largest  sense,  we  may  call  History.  Then  there 
is  the  third  and  most  intimate  problem,  namely,  his  own  self — 
the  world  within.  The  answers  to  this  are  written  large  in 
what  we  may  call  Literature.  And  the  three  problems  are  one. 
Ultimately  the  scholar  studies  nature  with  reference  to  him- 


I4  THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE  OF  PRINCETON 

self,  and  the  inner  miracle  of  his  own  consciousness  is  the 
answering  marvel  to  the  outer  miracle  of  nature,  and  the 
widening  horizon  of  Science  is  forever  bounded  by  the  limit 
of  what  human  beings  can  know.  He  also  studies  his  fellow- 
men  with  inevitable  reference  to  himself.  Thus  his  own 
human  nature  is  and  remains  the  centre  of  all  problems  af- 
fecting his  education.  The  ipse  mihi  magna  quaestw — "a 
mighty  question  was  I  to  myself" — of  the  ancient  thinker 
when  translated  into  modern  terms  means  just  what  Pope 
meant  by  "The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  Man." 

What  next?  As  the  three  threads  of  his  knowledge  of  the 
world,  his  fellowmen  and  himself  come  together  in  himself, 
they  lead  back  into  one  strand  that  holds  them  all,  to  his  first 
principles  of  thought  and  action,  or  what  we  call  Philosophy. 
This  is  the  order  and  summation  of  liberal  knowledge.  Any 
questions  behind  this  belong  to  the  ultimate  problem  of  Re- 
ligion. But  the  man  who  has  known  and  felt  the  central 
truths  of  Science,  History,  Literature  and  Philosophy,  even 
to  a  slight  and  imperfect  degree,  is  a  whole-minded,  well- 
educated  man.  Out  of  such  men  true  scholars  can  be  made, 
for  these  subjects  contain  preeminently  what  Locke  called  the 
"teeming  truths,  rich  in  store,  with  which  they  furnish  the 
mind,  and  like  the  lights  of  heaven  are  not  only  beautiful  and 
entertaining  in  themselves,  but  give  light  and  evidence  to 
other  things  that  without  them  could  not  be  seen  or  known." 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  used  to  say  that  there  are  some  ideas 
which  "stretch"  the  mind  that  once  entertains  them,  and  the 
idea  so  eloquently  phrased  by  Locke  will  permanently  stretch 
the  mind  of  every  young  scholar  who  receives  it.  Why  should 
he  not  have  at  least  a  gazing  acquaintance  with  the  greatest 
constellations  in  the  vast  firmament  of  knowledge  ?  And  why 
should  not  the  graduate  student,  no  matter  how  closely  he 
specializes,  be  given  every  chance  for  fellowship  with  students 
in  all  the  fields  of  liberal  study  ?  The  student  we  are  describ- 
ing is  to  be  more  than  a  specialist  and  even  more  than  a  gen- 


DETAIL— PROCTER  HALL 


THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE  OF  PRINCETON  17 

eral  scholar;  he  is  to  be  a  human  being,  capable  to  the  full  of 
the  highest  experiences  a  man  may  know,  capable  of  meeting 
with  "many  men  of  many  minds"  and  of  getting  on  with  them 
all.  Against  the  dispersion  and  diffraction  of  knowledge  we 
set  the  unity  of  knowledge.  Against  the  scattering  and  isola- 
tion of  scholarship  we  set  the  daily  companionship  of  scholars. 
Against  the  broken  parts  we  set  the  whole.  Against  indiffer- 
ence, estrangement,  intolerance,  narrowness  and  pedantry, 
which  is  perhaps  even  more  intolerable  than  superficiality,  let 
us  set  the  unity  of  general  and  special  excellence  as  the  stand- 
ard for  the  scholar  individually,  and  brotherly  association  with 
others  as  the  standard  for  him  socially. 

On  the  individual  side,  then,  we  need  scholars  who  know 
well  some  part  and  can  also  see  the  whole.  No  doubt  this 
kind  of  scholarship  may  be  attained  in  a  way  by  individual 
study  alone.  But  is  not  thus  attained  in  the  best  way,  nor  is  it 
likely  to  be  retained  in  vigor.  Most  young  scholars  need  an 
added  stimulus.  The  "shy  recluse"  of  Arnold's  poem  or  the 
possessor  of  what  Milton  styled  "a  fugitive  and  cloistered 
virtue"  may  succeed  in  being  whole-minded  in  purpose.  But 
he  does  not  know  how  to  connect  himself  with  men.  He  is 
socially  a  fraction,  perhaps  even  a  zero.  Let  us  emphasize  the 
truth  that  because  a  scholar  is  a  human  being  he  is  also  a 
social  being.  No  doubt  he  must  generally  do  his  best  thinking 
by  himself.  Yet  he  cannot  live  to  himself  alone  or  by  him- 
self alone  and  fulfil  his  duty  either  to  himself  or  to  his  fellow- 
men.  Isolation  is  not  freedom.  To  do  his  part  as  a  scholar 
he  must  take  part  as  a  scholar  in  the  give-and-take  of  a  social 
life.  For  him  this  life  has  two  environments,  the  inner  and 
nearer  world  of  scholars  and  the  larger  enveloping  world  of 
men  outside.  The  two  are  needed  to  bring  out  for  his  own 
good  the  free  play  of  his  powers  and  to  make  it  sure  that  the 
benefits  he  can  give  and  take  will  be  actually  given  and  taken. 

His  movement  in  the  nearer  world  of  scholars  does  not 
mean  merely  that  a  student  of  American  history,  for  example, 


i8  THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE  OF  PRINCETON 

should  be  interested  in  American  history,  as  a  whole  or  in 
modern  history  as  a  whole,  or  even  in  the  whole  of  history,  but 
that  no  important  range  of  higher  thought,  even  though  it  be 
strange  to  him,  should  be  distasteful.  And  it  means  emphatic- 
ally that  our  student  of  history,  no  matter  in  how  small  a 
part  of  it,  should  be  in  friendly  companionship,  especially  dur- 
ing the  plastic  time  of  his  training  with  students  in  the  other 
fields,  with  men  of  science,  philosophy  and  letters.  Here  the 
magic  influence  of  man  on  man  turns  thinking  into  living,  and 
into  living  in  a  large  and  magnanimous  way.  It  does  much 
for  the  specialist  by  broadening  his  sympathies.  It  may  do 
more  by  refreshing  his  energies  through  the  recreation  he  can 
get  out  of  the  inspection  of  regions  far  different  from 
the  place  where  his  thoughts  must  dwell  for  most  of  his 
time.  It  is  this  which  enables  him  to  bring  new  lights  to  bear 
on  his  specialty,  high-lights  and  half-lights,  in  gleams  and 
flashes  from  near  and  far,  and  to  irradiate  himself  as  well 
as  his  studies.  Here  variety  becomes  the  cure  for  monotony. 
It  is  in  fact  the  adventurous  spirit,  this  free  roving  and  rang- 
ing, the  restless  sweep  of  observation,  the  traveller's  and  ex- 
plorer's instinct,  which  is  also  a  mark  of  the  highest  minds, 
both  in  Science  and  Literature. 

Personal  intercourse  with  scholars,  whose  work  lies  in  fields 
otherwise  foreign,  is  accordingly  the  best  prevention  against 
errors  of  judgment  which  are  sure  to  be  made  by  the 
man  who  is  solely  a  specialist.  So  long  as  the  whole  is 
greater  than  any  part,  this  will  remain  true.  Still,  it  is  not 
enough,  even  if  it  were  practicable,  that  the  students  of  each 
single  part  of  knowledge  should  know  the  students  of  each 
other  separate  part  without  knowing  something  more.  It 
would  amount  merely  to  massing  the  particulars,  to  casting  all 
the  broken  pieces  into  a  confused  pile.  Of  course,  it  would 
be  "better  than  nothing,"  because  it  is  better  than  nothing  to 
realize  how  great  is  the  number  of  the  parts  of  knowledge. 
We  are  speaking  here  of  scholars  who  have  or  at  least  desire  to 


* 


^SdS5r— -^ — 1  •* 


THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE   OF  PRINCETON  2I 

have  the  general  unified  view — the  men  who  realize  that  the 
final  value  of  specialization  is  in  relating  the  particular  to  the 
general.  The  parts  of  a  tower  or  temple  may  be  thrown  down 
into  a  heap  by  an  earthquake.  All  the  parts  are  there,  but  the 
tower  and  temple  are  gone,  and  make  a  heap  of  ruins.  So  it 
is  with  the  ruins  of  knowledge.  It  is  the  parts  of  the  tower 
or  temple  assembled  in  definite  unity  that  makes  the  differ- 
ence between  the  structure  and  its  literal  destruction.  It  is  in 
getting  this  view  of  knowledge  as  an  ordered  whole,  first  from 
one  angle  and  then  from  another  and  another,  part  to  part, 
function  to  function,  and  all  assembled  in  clear  unity,  that  the 
scholar  is  forever  released  from  specialistic  constraint  ancf 
brought  out  into  the  daylight  of  enlarged  vision  and  whole- 
minded  judgment.  This  is  the  release  from  confinement  his 
widening  acquaintance  in  the  diversified  world  of  scholars 
can  and  will  bring  to  every  man  who  has  real  capacity  for 
freedom.  The  time  of  times  for  this  comradeship  is  in  his 
student  days.  If  he  misses  it  then,  he  may  miss  it  forever. 

It  is  somewhat  discouraging  to  think  how  much  certain  de- 
vices of  university  organization  are  unfavorable  to  the  inti- 
mate intermingling  of  graduate  students  with  professors  and 
with  each  other.  The  departmental  organization  of  faculties, 
a  source  of  strength  in  many  ways,  is  a  source  of  weakness 
here,  for  the  reason  that  both  professor  and  student  so  often 
think  of  themselves  as  merely  "departmental  men."  The  ar- 
rangements for  regulating  the  student's  work,  the  slavery  to 
routine,  the  absurd  pressure  put  on  men  to  secure  the  doctor's 
degree — as  though  it  were  the  chief  end  of  their  training,  the 
excessive  mechanism  for  "safeguarding  the  degree,"  the  ac- 
cumulation of  "credits,"  the  general  worship  of  machinery  and 
the  commercializing  of  the  degree  itself,  until  it  has  almost 
come  to  be  an  employment  badge  like  a  "union  card" — these 
are  some  of  the  things  that  are  cramping  and  mechanizing 
energies  that  ought  to  be  unconstrained,  and  are  cutting  off 
young  scholars  from  free  converse  in  things  intellectual. 


22  THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE  OF  PRINCETON 

Now  among  the  things  in  this  life  that  ought  to  be  freest 
are  the  natural  movements  of  the  human  mind  in  study  and 
the  interchange  of  sympathy  among  scholars.  When  and 
where  is  there  to  be  a  place  for  this  if  not  at  the  graduate 
stage  and  in  the  studies  so  well  named  "liberal"?  And 
"liberal"  they  truly  are,  for  they  are  the  studies  which  su- 
premely enfranchise,  universalize  and  elevate  human  thinking 
the  world  over.  It  is  in  the  higher  ranges  of  these  that  labor 
becomes  joy  to  young  men,  and  it  is  here  the  glorious  saying 
of  Aristotle  finds  fulfilment:  "Pleasure  perfects  labor,  as 
beauty  crowns  youth."  Let  all  rules  and  mechanism  that 
hamper  this  be  swept  away!  Machine-made  scholarship  is 
generally  mediocre.  It  is  not  what  we  need.  Of  one  thing 
we  may  be  sure,  that  it  is  only  by  unrestricted  fellowship  the 
highest  personalities  will  be  attracted  and  happily  developed — 
the  men  who  may  be  depended  on  later  to  spread  the  friend- 
ship of  knowledge  wherever  their  influence  extends. 

There  is  a  larger  society  in  which  our  scholar  ought  to  live 
and  move,  the  general  society  of  men,  the  largest  world  in 
which  he  can  give  and  receive  influence.  The  race  of  scholars, 
at  its  best,  is  still  a  tribe  with  tribal  limitations.  It  has  its 
"idols."  To  generalize  the  exclusively  scholarly  point  of  view, 
to  make  it  less  clannish,  less  complacent,  less  "cocky,"  less 
priggish,  less  unsocial,  less  pedantically  solemn,  the  scholar 
needs  to  know  the  world  of  men  his  knowledge  is  to  serve. 
More  scholars  fail  in  life  because  they  do  not  understand  their 
fellowmen  than  because  they  do  not  understand  their  subjects 
of  study.  The  theme  is  too  vast  to  dwell  on  here.  Yet  it  is 
at  least  in  place  to  say  in  passing  that  any  theory  of  a  grad- 
uate school  which  practically  restricts  its  student  membership 
to  intending  professors  and  teachers  is  a  theory  which  is  sure 
to  lessen  its  usefulness.  For  there  are  other  men  who  ought 
to  have  a  chance  at  higher  liberal  studies,  men  who  are  to 
serve  their  fellows  with  trained  intelligence  outside  of  the 
professor's  chair.  The  presence  of  this  second  body  of  stu- 


THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE  OF  PRINCETON  23 

dents,  living  and  intermingling  with  the  others,  is  good  for 
both  classes.  It  mediates  to  the  intending  teacher  some  knowl- 
edge of  the  world  of  men  outside;  it  mediates  to  the  others 
some  knowledge  of  the  standards  of  scholarship.  The  two 
together  are  needed  to  constitute  the  fuller  fellowship.  This 
is  the  fruitful  and  profitable  community  of  students  in  higher 
studies.  It  is  the  young  scholar  so  circumstanced  who  is  at 
last  being  put  on  his  way  to  be  more  than  a  learner  or  a 
teacher  or  a  discoverer.  It  is  he  who  is  being  actually  and 
wisely  equipped  to  be  a  guide  of  men. 

In  our  American  university  system  the  presidents  and  trus- 
tees and  faculties,  separately  and  collectively,  are  of  necessary 
importance,  but  in  the  very  last  analysis  the  fate  of  a  univers- 
ity is  not  dependent  on  them.  It  depends  finally  and  forever 
on  the  character  and  attitude  of  the  students.  This  is  the 
self-renewing  spring,  the  Fountain  of  Perpetual  Youth,  from 
which  all  streams  of  university  life  are  fed  and  without  which 
the  fields  of  knowledge  become  arid  and  unfertile.  Without 
students  our  universities  would  soon  become  peaceful  soli- 
tudes, slumbering  in  an  endless  "long  vacation."  Wild  as  the 
statement  sounds,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  in  the  long  run 
students  could  get  along  without  professors  easier  than  pro- 
fessors could  get  along  without  students.  This  is  so  obviously 
true  of  undergraduate  life  that  it  is  a  wonder  it  has  been  for- 
gotten in  regard  to  graduate  students.  The  forgetfulness 
seems  due  to  the  just  emphasis  which  is  to  be  placed  on  the 
prime  necessity  of  having  professors,  and  professors  of  the 
first  power.  Yet  so  long  as  there  are  young  scholars  to  be 
formed  and  trained,  so  long  must  the  presence  of  a  body  of 
competent  students  be  a  prime  essential,  indeed  in  a  sense 
the  first  prime  essential,  even  if  there  were  no  other  reason 
for  it  than  to  perpetuate  the  supply  of  great  professors.  And 
it  is  largely  for  the  sake  of  the  students  the  professors  are 
necessary  at  all.  The  two  "go  together" — in  both  senses  of 
the  phrase. 


24  THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE  OF  PRINCETON 

The  character  of  the  graduate  student  must  then  be  a  pro- 
foundly regulative  factor  in  the  life  of  the  graduate  school. 
All  those  and  only  those  who  show  capacity  and  desire  for 
high  intellectual  effort  should  be  encouraged  to  enter.  It  is 
no  place  for  either  shallow  dabbling,  narrow  intensity,  dull 
mediocrity  or  unsocial  isolation.  Young  men,  young  in  spirit, 
rich  in  intellectual  and  moral  worth,  responsive  to  scholarly 
impulses,  eager  to  seek  and  find,  able  to  perceive,  take  and  use 
the  more  valuable  as  distinguished  from  the  less  valuable  ma- 
terial of  knowledge,  willing  to  do  all  and  dare  all  to  make 
themselves  master-students,  open-eyed  to  ideas  in  their  rele- 
vancy, worth  and  beauty,  pulsing  with  energy,  inventiveness 
and  fantasy,  men  companionable,  magnanimous  and  unselfish, 
such  are  the  students  to  be  longed  for  and  prized  supremely. 
These  are  the  sons  of  knowledge  who  are  best  fitted  to  live 
not  for  themselves  alone  nor  by  themselves  alone,  but  first  in 
the  household  of  knowledge  and  then  in  the  larger  society  of 
the  world. 

On  the  basis  of  such  convictions  the  Graduate  College  of 
Princeton  was  planned.  In  spirit  and  substance  it  is  to  be  a 
new  institution  planted  in  the  midst  of  the  present  Graduate 
School,  to  take  root  there  and  gradually  transform  it  into 
something  higher.  It  is  an  answer  to  our  needs  and  a  prophecy 
of  our  hopes.  It  is  American  in  being  an  outgrowth  of  our 
life  and  catholic  in  its  welcome  to  all  influences  consistent  with 
its  nature.  It  is  democratic  in  offering  equal  opportunity  to 
all  who  are  fit  to  take  advantage  of  it,  but  not  in  guaranteeing 
that  all  are  of  equal  or  sufficient  fitness.  No  such  institution 
as  this  is  planned  to  become  yet  exists  in  our  land,  and  very 
few  like  it  are  to  be  found  in  foreign  lands.  In  some  ways 
its  model  is  what  might  be  styled  the  Honours  Colleges  in 
English  universities.  Have  we  forgotten  that  in  one  little 
entry  hard  by  the  great  tower  of  Trinity  in  Cambridge  there 
were  housed  as  students  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  Macaulay,  Thack- 
eray and  Tennyson  ?  Have  we  forgotten  Christ's  College,  the 


:'fi  flppw^ 


& 


i-_r-  |f..- 

-r-Srf=AS*-~ 

_*__  ^  ^^^^^sssss^S^^\^^s^  jfx.^ 


DOORWAY    IN    THOMSON    COLLEGE 


THE   GRADUATE   COLLEGE   OF   PRINCETON  27 

student  home  of  Milton  and  Darwin  ?  Have  we  forgotten  the 
work  of  Jowett  at  Balliol,  or  the  bright  earlier  time  in  Oriel 
immortalized  in  the  lines  of  Matthew  Arnold : 

For   rigorous   masters   seized  my  youth, 
And  purged  its  faith,  and  trimmed  its  fire, 

Shew'd  me  the  high,  white  star  of  truth, 
There  bade  me  gaze,  and  there  aspire. 

Let  us  cross  the  Channel  and  stroll  on  the  south  side  of  the 
Seine,  where  once  stood  residential  colleges  of  the  old  Uni- 
versity of  Paris.  Only  the  Sorbonne  visibly  perpetuates  to-day 
even  the  name  of  any  of  them.  But  think  of  the  £cole 
Normale  Superieure,  not  far  away,  the  great  residential  grad- 
uate college  of  France,  more  brilliant  in  its  record  than  any 
other.  With  only  about  one  hundred  students,  graduating 
some  thirty  a  year,  it  has  done  more  than  any  other  school  to 
give  tone  to  the  best  French  thought.  Here  Laplace  and  La- 
grange  laid  the  foundations  of  modern  astronomy.  Here  a 
great  chapter  in  the  history  of  mathematics  was  written.  Here 
Pasteur  taught — enough  glory  in  itself  for  any  place.  And  as 
we  review  the  roll  in  physics  and  chemistry  and  history  and 
philosophy  and  literature,  and  in  the  public  service  of  France, 
it  is  with  a  feeling  akin  to  despair  of  ever  being  able  to  match 
such  a  record  in  any  American  school. 

And  what  of  the  great  universities  of  Germany?  While  it 
is  true  there  is  as  yet  no  residential  college  for  university 
students  there,  it  is  with  the  liveliest  satisfaction  we  read  that 
at  the  centenary  celebration  last  October  the  thoroughly  mod- 
ern University  of  Berlin,  premier  school  of  the  German-speak- 
ing world,  received  and  accepted  gifts  for  the  establishment 
of  a  residential  college. 

Thus  far  American  universities  have  made  little  provision 
for  the  physical  and  social  welfare  of  graduate  students.  Here 
and  there  a  dormitory  has  been  set  apart  for  the  purpose.  As 
a  rule,  however,  they  have  been  left  to  shift  for  themselves. 
Much  needs  to  be  done.  If  the  best  results  are  to  be  had,  their 


28  THE   GRADUATE   COLLEGE   OF   PRINCETON 

standard  of  social  living  should  not  be  that  of  a  boarding 
house,  a  hotel,  a  club  or  a  dormitory.  It  should  be  the  quiet 
dignity  of  a  home  of  learning.  If  the  higher  teachers  of  the 
nation  should  be  trained  in  a  place  and  society  worthy  of  their 
calling,  why  should  they  not  dwell  in  a  beautiful,  even  in  a 
stately  home?  The  loveliness  of  King's  College  Chapel,  which 
appealed  so  deeply  to  Milton  and  Wordsworth,  is  part  of  the 
best  endowment  of  Cambridge.  Scenic  beauty  in  a  university 
is  more  to  its  students  than  a  passing  enjoyment.  It  becomes 
an  unfading  picture  to  be  kept  among  the  treasures  of  life- 
long affection.  Goldwin  Smith  was  no  sentimentalist,  and  yet 
at  four-score  he  could  write  these  words  of  memory  about 
Magdalen  College :  "My  heart  has  often  turned  to  its  beauty, 
and  often  the  sound  of  its  sweet  bells  has  come  to  me  across 
the  ocean."  It  was  really  to  him,  as  he  said,  "a  little  Eden  in 
a  world  where  there  are  none  too  many  of  them."  Plain  living 
and  high  thinking  are  not  harmed  by  good  architecture  nor 
helped  by  unlovely  surroundings. 

The  object  of  founding  the  Graduate  College  of  Princeton, 
however,  is  not  to  erect  fine  buildings  or  to  create  scenery.  It 
is  to  create  in  America  a  valuable  institution  which  does  not 
yet  exist,  a  residential  college  devoted  solely  to  the  higher 
liberal  studies — a  home  of  science  and  philosophy,  of  literature 
and  history.  The  convictions  on  which  it  is  based  have  al- 
ready been  outlined.  A  short  sketch  of  the  plan  of  operation 
may  help  to  make  its  intent  clearer. 

Three  elements  compose  the  Graduate  College.  First  and 
foremost  is  a  body  of  thoroughly  first-rate  professors,  to  be 
added  to  others  now  in  the  faculty — interesting  men,  scholars 
of  high  power,  eminent  in  their  subjects  and  able  to  waken 
young  men.  Do  we  need  to  say  this  is  the  capital  A  in  the 
alphabet?  If  so,  let  it  be  said  again  and  underscored — be- 
cause it  would  be  absurd  to  say  anything  else.  The  second  ele- 
ment is  a  company  of  students  of  high  ability — not  a  big 
crowd,  but  a  moderate  number — living  as  a  community  in  the 


THE   GRADUATE   COLLEGE   OF   PRINCETON  29 

buildings  of  the  Graduate  College.  The  number  may  be  a 
hundred  or  so,  perhaps  more — but  I  hope  not  a  great  many 
more.  Quality  first,  quantity  afterwards.  Experience  will 
"settle  the  working  limit.  The  important  thing  is  that  they 
shall  make  a  student  community  of  high  type,  sufficient  in 
number  to  develop  a  society  where  every  man  may  know  his 
fellows,  find  the  variety  he  needs,  and  not  be  lost  in  a  crowd. 

The  sole  test  of  admission  is  mental  and  moral  worth.  To 
make  social  eligibility  a  test  would  be  unjust  and  silly.  What 
is  wanted  is  strong,  interesting  men  with  scholarly  instincts. 
"The  workman  is  greater  than  his  work" — so  runs  the  old 
proverb.  We  want  the  best  men  first;  the  best  work  will  fol- 
low. This  is  the  one  straight  road  to  achieving  excellence  in 
anything.  We  are  hunting  for  men  first,  specialists  second. 
How  are  we  to  get  them? — for  it  seems  as  hard  to  get  the  fit 
students  as  the  fit  professors.  But,  given  the  right  professors, 
it  can  be  done,  and  done  surely  in  one  way.  We  have  already 
had  individual  cases  of  students  of  high  promise  who  were 
attracted,  one  by  one,  by  the  preliminary  experiment  of  a 
graduate  house,  conducted  for  the  last  seven  years  with  scant 
means  on  a  small  scale.  The  attractiveness  of  the  type  of 
scholarly  life  proposed  is  the  sure  means  of  bringing  them — 
one  by  one,  one  bringing  others,  as  time  goes  on.  Like  will 
follow  like.  Men  love  to  study  in  surroundings  where  knowl- 
edge is  visibly  and  socially  honored. 

There  will  be  room  for  "many  men  of  many  minds."  The 
general  range  of  the  higher  liberal  knowledge  is  to  be  at- 
tempted, so  far  as  means  permit.  The  scholars  who  are  to  be 
professors  or  teachers  for  life  will  probably  compose  the 
major  part  of  the  family.  But  there  will  be  others.  There 
will  be  room  for  the  intending  lawyer  or  doctor  or  minister  or 
engineer  or  architect  who  can  give  a  year  or  so  to  the  liberal 
studies  underlying  his  future  calling.  Men  may  be  trained 
here  for  the  diplomatic  and  civil  service.  Still  others,  we  hope, 
may  be  trained  as  writers.  Future  authors,  investigators  and 


30  THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE   OF   PRINCETON 

discoverers,  the  men  who  want  to  study  economic,  social  or 
governmental  problems,  the  entire  range  of  seekers  in  the  pure 
sciences,  the  student  of  historic  art,  the  philosophic  thinker, 
the  lover  of  literature,  the  explorer  of  history — such  as  these 
may  find  a  welcome  here.  It  is  much  to  expect,  but  not  too 
much  to  desire. 

The  third  element  is  the  buildings,  the  material  home  where- 
in this  community  shall  find  the  realization  of  its  desires.  The^ 
conditions  of  student  life  in  Princeton  are  distinctive.  They 
are  not  urban  or  suburban  or  rustic,  but  rural.  Here  is  the 
only  large  old  college  in  a  very  small  town.  Its  dominant 
college  tradition  is  well-rooted  and  comparatively  pure.  The 
Graduate  College  is  the  flowering  of  this  root.  Whatever 
may  be  true  of  other  subjects,  liberal  studies  at  least  take 
on  new  charm  amid  old  associations,  and  find  a  natural  home 
in  the  peace  and  sylvan  beauty  of  rural  life.  In  order  to 
make  the  buildings  attractive  and  beautiful  the  so-called 
collegiate  Gothic  was  chosen — not  "modified"  Gothic,  nor 
hotel  Gothic,  but  the  exquisite  perpendicular  type,  so 
lovely  in  the  few  remaining  examples  in  English  colleges. 
Why  do  students  naturally  love  such  buildings?  I  think  it  is 
because,  with  the  scenic  setting,  they  look  inviting,  domestic, 
poetic,  and  seem  in  some  way  ancestral  to  universities.  Quad- 
rangles shadowing  sunny  lawns,  towers  and  gateways  opening 
into  quiet  retreats,  ivy-grown  walls  looking  on  sheltered  gar- 
dens, vistas  through  avenues  of  arching  elms,  walks  that  wind 
amid  the  groves  of  Academe — these  are  the  places  where  the 
affections  linger  and  where  memories  cling  like  the  ivies  them- 
selves, and  these  are  the  answers  in  architecture  and  scenic 
setting  to  the  immemorial  longings  of  academic  generations 
back  to  the  time  when  universities  first  began  to  build  their 
homes.  If  you  want  to  know  what  a  student  is,  do  not  ask 
first  what  he  knows  or  even  what  he  believes,  but  find  out  what 
he  loves.  Here  is  the  real  man.  Get  hold  of  that  and  you 
get  hold  of  him.  Do  the  finer  minds  love  the  rigors  of  study 


. 1 -  ~ 


••*W->'v>-  <"--  *  ^  ~  r^  - 

».»*>T.  "^        -:"'^^r^ 


FIREPLACE— PROCTER  HALL 


THE   GRADUATE   COLLEGE   OF   PRINCETON 


33 


and  "the  joy  of  elevated  thoughts"  in  an  American  boarding 
house  so  well  as  in  surroundings  which  appeal  to  their  imagi- 
nation and  affections?  The  amenities  of  life  are  worth  some- 
thing— even  to  the  young  scholar.  The  joy  of  surroundings 
that  keep  him  buoyant  means  doubling  and  trebling  his  power. 

This  community  of  graduate  students,  with  here  and  there 
a  resident  professor  living  among  them,  and  their  other  pro- 
fessors visiting  freely  and  intimately,  is  to  be  a  busy  hive  of 
industry.  Intimate  contact  of  the  student  with  his  professors 
and  fellow-students,  one  by  one  or  in  small  groups,  is  the 
force  that  will  "centre"  his  work  and  quicken  his  life.  He 
will  be  environed  by  a  cluster  of  men  bent  on  like  pursuits  and 
all  co-operating  to  a  single  end  under  the  guidance  of  pro- 
fessors who  are  themselves  closely  united  for  the  same  end. 
The  influences  are  always  operative.  Exposure  to  them  is 
inevitable  and  constant.  Here  is  the  contagion  of  knowledge. 
The  highest  exertions  of  young  minds  thus  come  about  with 
a  swing  and  rush  of  power  which  can  be  produced  with  cer- 
tainty in  no  other  way.  And  yet  I  hope  it  will  also  be  a  place 
where  men  will  find  time  to  think — tranquilly,  steadily,  pro- 
foundly, nobly — in  "thoughts  that  breathe  and  words  that 
burn,"' — time  to  think  without  haste  on  themes  too  important 
to  be  settled  in  a  hurry. 

There  is  a  range  of  intellectual  life  outside  the  courses  of 
formal  study.  It  is  the  range  of  free  casual  intercourse  in 
things  of  the  mind.  The  gathering  around  the  fireside  in  the 
Common  Room  after  dinner  is  one  example  of  it.  The  table- 
talk  and  after-dinner  talk  of  cultivated  men  is  no  small  part 
of  a  liberal  education.  In  the  Graduate  College,  at  least,  the 
art  of  conversation  need  never  die.  Another  means  of  per- 
fecting our  students  will  be  travel.  Whenever  desirable,  any 
Fellow  may  be  sent  to  some  university  abroad  for  particular 
study.  The  College  will  again  and  again  be  visited  by  one 
and  another  as  he  returns.  Expeditions  may  be  organized 
here.  As  they  return  with  their  treasures  of  art,  science  or 


34  THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE   OF  PRINCETON 

history,  the  Graduate  College  will  be  a  welcome  place  for 
working  out  the  results  and  preparing  them  for  publication. 
That  visitors  of  distinction  will  come  to  the  College  is  certain. 
The  students  will  thus  be  in  the  way  of  meeting  famous  men 
of  other  universities  and  lands — some  of  them,  we  hope,  as 
visiting  professors  in  residence.  And  where  the  cosmopolitan 
touch  is  once  felt,  provincialism  vanishes. 

Seventeen  years  ago,  when  Princeton  took  her  university 
name,  the  proposed  Graduate  College  was  first  officially  sanc- 
tioned. The  bread  has  been  cast  upon  the  waters.  After  many 
days  and  many  vicissitudes  the  College  which  started  out  as  a 
paper  project  is  returning  as  a  fact,  thanks  to  the  devotion  of 
its  friends.  Americans  are  often  accused  of  being  overpracti- 
cal.  So  they  are.  They  also  react  the  other  way.  Somewhere 
within  them  is  a  strain  of  imagination  which  only  needs  oc- 
casion to  show  itself  as  unselfish  enthusiasm.  It  is  so  with 
those  who  have  sustained  this  undertaking — and  they  are 
many  and  noble.  Only  a  few  can  be  mentioned  here.  The 
project  appealed  earliest  to  the  practical  benevolence  of  Mrs. 
Swann,  a  long-time  resident  of  Princeton,  who  left  to  the 
Graduate  College  the  greater  part  of  her  estate.  I  name  four 
others.  It  appealed  strongly  to  Mr.  Procter,  a  devoted  son 
of  Princeton  and  a  highly  capable  man  of  affairs  as  well.  It 
appealed  to  the  late  Mr.  Wyman,  an  alumnus  who  had  never 
returned  to  his  old  college,  and  yet  toward  the  end  of  a  very 
long  life,  which  had  been  keenly  engrossed  in  acquiring  wealth, 
found  in  the  Graduate  College  the  one  object  that  attracted 
him  irresistibly.  So  he  left  it  virtually  all  his  means.  It  ap- 
pealed to  Mr.  Pyne,  the  present  chairman,  and  has  seemed  to 
him  the  worthiest  consummation  of  the  system  of  liberal 
studies  in  the  loved  university  to  which  he  has  given  the  best 
of  his  life.  It  appealed  to  his  predecessor,  the  first  chairman, 
ex-President  Cleveland,  a  man  not  susceptible  to  superficial 
enthusiasms,  who  never  wavered,  fair  weather  or  foul,  in  his 
fidelity  to  the  cause.  "Speaking  for  myself,"  he  wrote  a  year 


THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE  OF  PRINCETON  35 

before  his  death,  "I  want  to  say  to  you  that  I  have  never  been 
enlisted  in  a  cause  which  has  given  me  more  satisfaction  or  a 
better  feeling  of  usefulness."  Some  of  the  helpers  are  gone 
before  the  college  could  come  into  existence.  They  will  be 
remembered.  Mrs.  Swann's  gift  is  visibly  embodied  in  Thom- 
son College.  Mr.  Wyman's  bequest  will  bear  his  memory 
onward  for  centuries,  and  the  college  stands  on  part  of  the 
old  battlefield  of  Princeton,  where  his  father,  a  stripling, 
fought  under  Washington.  And  the  traveller  hurrying  past 
Princeton  may  now  see  on  the  western  sky-line  a  memorial 
tower — solid,  straight,  aspiring — to  remind  him  that  this  is 
the  college  to  whose  inception  Mr.  Cleveland  gave  the  best 
effort  of  his  closing  years. 

Some  think  enthusiasm  is  "in  bad  form."  It  was  the  mark 
of  the  Renaissance.  It  is  the  mark  of  periods  of  revival  and 
discovery.  Enthusiasm  for  knowledge,  for  excellence,  for  the 
men  who  are  to  light  the  way  of  advance  may  be  in  "bad 
form,"  but  it  is  in  dead  earnest.  It  is  at  the  heart  of  true 
student-life.  If,  however,  it  should  be  quieted  to  save  it  from 
being  noisy,  let  this  be  done  not  by  suppression  but  by  eleva- 
tion. And  so  in  closing  these  reflections  we  may  well  pause  an 
instant  and  listen  intently  to  some  quiet  words  of  a  thousand 
years  ago,  the  calm  words  of  Alcuin,  teacher  of  Charlemagne, 
to  his  little  band  of  students  on  the  dignity  and  glory  of 
learning : 

It  is  easy  to  point  out  to  you  the  path  of  wisdom,  if  only  ye  love  it  for 
the  sake  of  God,  for  knowledge,  for  purity  of  heart,  for  understanding 
the  truth,  yea,  and  for  itself.  Seek  it  not  to  gain  the  praise  of  men  or 
the  honor  of  this  world,  nor  yet  for  the  deceitful  pleasures  of  riches;  for 
the  more  these  things  are  loved  the  farther  do  they  cause  men  who  seek 
them  to  depart  from  the  light  of  truth  and  knowledge. 

There  is  something  old-fashioned,  even  a  bit  commonplace 
to  some,  in  the  sound  of  these  words.  Yet  they  are  wise 
words,  for  they  hold  in  essence  the  one  final  answer  both  to 
sordid  commercialism  and  narrow  provincialism  in  education. 


36  THE   GRADUATE  COLLEGE  OF  PRINCETON 

They  are  not  outlived  yet,  nor  has  any  school  even  lived  up 
to  them  fully.  Could  a  school  of  higher  studies  have  a  higher 
impulse?  May  it  energize  and  transfigure  the  new-born 
Graduate  College! 


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